


save yourself (fuck the story)

by tombenough_and_continent



Series: deuce of gears [1]
Category: RWBY
Genre: BAMF Oscar Pine, Gen, post-episode AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-09
Updated: 2019-01-09
Packaged: 2019-10-07 07:50:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17361956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tombenough_and_continent/pseuds/tombenough_and_continent
Summary: When Oscar Pine goes missing in Argus, he doesn’t go shopping for clothes, nor does he get kidnapped by Salem’s faction. He leaves — for good.(AU from “Lost,” V6C09, that got out of hand).





	1. gone

_Who need a hero?_

_You need a hero, look in the mirror, there go your hero._

\- Kendrick Lamar, “Pray for Me”

 

\-----------------------------------------------

 

 

Oscar is halfway back to Haven when he realizes that he has left.

 

Faintly, he knows that he must have left the house, gone to the train station, purchased a ticket, gotten on the train. He even took the time to pack his things, if the full backpack on the seat beside him is any sign to go by. These are complex tasks, involving levels of thought and planning and deliberation, but it isn’t until an hour into the train ride back to Mistral that he gazes out the window at the darkened sky and really, truly realizes what he has done.

 

For a moment, he considers whether Ozpin had taken over his body again and done the leaving, but then dismisses it — he would know if Ozpin had possessed their body. It was never a quiet affair. No, Ozpin was still that tight ball of presence in the back of their mind, unresponsive, unmoved since the fallout in the snow.

 

Oscar brushes by it — it feels like lightly skimming mental fingers over fabric — then moves on.

 

The thrumming of the train is taking him further and further away from Argus, from a lighted room with raised voices, from Huntsman and Huntresses he’s only known for a few months, from a wall he was slammed against and a door that no one noticed he opened and the crunch of lightly falling snow beneath his boots. He feels something rise in his chest, unbidden, and tries to force it away. He’s only known these people for three months, after all, it’s not like they’re his whole life.

 

He looks down at his hands, gloved (always), absently noting that they’d stopped shaking. Oscar glances back outside, where snow-covered trees pass in silence. There are a few other people on this red-eye to Haven, but most of them have already bunked down for the night.

 

There’s no feeling of rightness this time, as the miles peel away beneath his feet. There’s no feeling of anything, really, except a yawning chasm of despair that he pushes firmly away. He tucks his knees to his chest, leans against the window, and tries to get comfortable. Whether or not leaving the others behind was the right idea, he still doesn’t know, but it’s not as if he could stop the train in its tracks right now, so he closes his eyes against the cold glass and tries to get some rest.

 

—

 

There is no Grimm attack on the train this time, which reassures him — he can’t shake the feeling that there’s an invisible target painted on his back, visible only Grimm and Salem’s henchmen who want him dead just because he’s carrying another soul with him that he never asked for. He gets off the train with all the other bleary-eyed passengers, announcements and chatter echoing in the high vaulted hall of Haven Train Station. Everything feels too familiar, until he remembers that they left less than a week ago.

 

It feels like so much more.

 

There’s the train he took to get here, that first time, when Hazel had gotten him a ticket before either of them knew who the other was, and it leaves from the station in two hours, but the thought of getting on another train, sitting through the hours and the miles that would bring him back to Auntie Em’s house, the wide dirt-paved roads, the rows and rows of neat, farmed fields, his room and its sloped roof and suddenly he can’t, he can’t go back, what would he say to Auntie Em, what could he tell her?

 

So Oscar takes off, walking through Haven, surrounded by the shifting morning crowds of the city waking up. A surge of morning commuters, bright colors clashing, emerge from the stairs down to the subway and engulf him as they disperse. Across the street, a dark-skinned man throws the tarp on his cart over the roof before settling behind his wares; a demure couple in matching blazers pass by companionably, hand-in-hand, free hands clasped around briefcase handles. On some street corners, he sees Haven city police paired with the occasional Faunus militia that the Belladonnas had brought from Menagerie; some of them even look happy about it.

 

Oscar remembers the first time he came to Haven — the confusion, the commotion, the chaos nearly overwhelming but oh so exciting. He’d felt lost then, anonymous in the push and pull of the crowd, guided through the streets by a quietly amused voice. This time, he traces a path back down the levels of Haven silent, in silence.

 

He buys a breakfast bun from a street vendor when he gets hungry, pleasantly surprised at the burst of sweet lotus paste when he bites into it. He walks briskly through neighborhoods of vast, sprawling mansions, of tall, looming apartment buildings, past papered windows and rounded gateways, always down, down, down.

 

Oscar must be approaching the edge of Haven — the sheer number of stairs he’s taken sure feels like it — when the buildings start to peter out. He realizes he’s hungry again, and this time he steps into a small convenience store, crowded with shelves, dimly lit, a ceiling fan spinning lazily overhead.

 

When he takes his items to the counter to check out — just a sandwich and a water bottle — the Faunus clerk glances him over and says, incredulous, “Are you going _backpacking_?”

 

It’s as convenient of a story as any, Oscar supposes. “Yeah.”

 

“ _Alone_?” The clerk’s bushy squirrel tail flicks in surprise as he scans the sandwich.

 

“Um, yes?”

 

“You must be insane. You’re going to get eaten by a Grimm out there!”

 

_I said you were sane. I didn’t say you were normal_. “I can take care of myself, thanks.” Oscar reaches for his things.

 

The Faunus gives him another considering look and relaxes. “Oh, you must be a Haven student. Shouldn’t you be in class? Where’s your team?”

 

That gives Oscar pause. Should he go to Haven Academy, and attempt to enroll as a student there? He could be trained as a Huntsman like he once dreamed of doing, have a team, the semester must have started by now—

 

Unbidden, green halls and dark wood paneling rise to mind, the terrible solidity of a pillar behind his back as his body is slammed back into it by the force of Hazel’s blow —

 

No, he couldn’t. “I’m not a Haven student, I just — I’m just going for a bit of a walk.” Oscar scoops his things into his arms, eager to get out of this conversation, and turns for the door.

 

“Well, take care out there,” the Faunus clerk calls after him, door clipping shut the last word, and the small kindness takes Oscar’s breath away so suddenly that he leans against the wall just outside and stops for a moment.

 

What was he doing _,_ leaving the others behind? They may not have been the kindest to him, but at least there was safety in numbers, and they all understood what was going on, what they were up against, and what was _Oscar_ doing, walking through and out of Haven alone? It wasn’t as if he could just _walk_ all the way home, and that still left the matter of what to say to Auntie Em —

 

_Any advice_? he thought at the passenger in his head. Oscar had come here on Ozpin’s instruction, after all.

 

No response. Oscar sighed; he wasn’t sure what to do about the catatonic wizard in the back of his mind. If Oscar battered hard enough, was annoying or desperate enough, he was fairly certain he could crack Ozpin’s shell. Probably.

 

But regardless of Ozpin’s lies and half-truths, of Oscar’s own complicated feelings on the matter, if Ozpin hadn’t stopped him from leaving Argus, leaving the Relic and the others behind, then Oscar didn’t think Ozpin had much of an opinion on where he was going now. So that just left Oscar. Alone.

 

He’d walk to the first stop on the line back home, Oscar decided. He’d walk that far and then decide if he’d get on the train and head home back to Auntie Em.

 

—

 

He reaches the first stop by late evening, when the stars are wheeling up into the purpled sky behind the trees, but he still doesn’t feel like getting on a train, so he strikes out away from the tracks until he doesn’t think a passing locomotive will wake him up at night and settles down to sleep, tucking his bedroll between the roots of a broad-leafed tree. Oscar’s done this before — slept beneath the stars — though never this late in the winter. He thinks Aura might play into keeping him warmer than he’d usually be, but he’s not entirely sure. Perhaps Ozpin would know.

 

There is no response from the passenger in his head, even though Oscar _knows_ for a fact that Ozpin can read his thoughts. The wizard had been frank about that, early on.

 

Oscar rolls over and goes to sleep.

 

—

 

He walks through the second stop, and the third, before he finally admits that he’s not trying to go home at all, and it takes an Ursa and two Beowolves before he realizes what he’s actually looking for.

 

It is by accident and sheer luck that he arrives when he does; accident on his part, as he’d just decided to give up following the train tracks, and the good luck of the villagers of Vyndu Village that he’d stumbled onto their main street just as the screaming began.

 

Oscar breaks into a run, shedding his backpack as he goes, the cane out and fully extended before he consciously registers reaching for it. He glances over the melee, noting that villagers have formed into teams of five to grapple with the Beowolves, fending them off with pitchforks and mean-looking rakes. The Ursa, on the other hand, towers head and shoulders over a burly woman gripping a heavy-looking blacksmith’s hammer, shielding two boys and a girl cowering behind her. With a growl, the Ursa bats her away with a thick paw, and the woman goes skidding in the dirt. One of the boys screams —

 

and Oscar is there, backhanding the Ursa with such force that his vision goes white for a moment, and reflexes trained over the last few months kicking into action — duck, roll, now lunge and press the advantage, now dance back a step, now _go_ —

 

and he blinks and coughs in shock as the ashes of the Ursa cascade around him, dissolved already. He didn’t _think_ that the fight would be that easy; Oscar remembers Ursas being more of a threat back when he lived on the farm —

 

but then sounds coalesce out of the meaningless chaos again, and someone is speaking to him, saying —

 

“I’m sorry?” Oscar clicks the cane shut again and straightens up, turning around.

 

“I said, I had it covered.” The burly woman from before is standing before him, one hand on a cocked him, a ferocious scowl on her face. Then her expression softens, and she offers him a brilliant smile. “But thank you for your help, Mr. Huntsman.”

 

“Oh, um, I’m not actually — that is, I’m not exactly — ” Oscar flinches when shouting erupts behind him, but then relaxes when he recognizes it as cheering — the other villagers have successfully vaporized their Beowulves.

 

“I figured you were too young to be a real Huntsman,” she says, then holds out a callused hand. “I’m Samara. Samara Deen.”

 

Reflexively, he takes her hand — Samara’s grip is firm and strong on his gloves — and as soon as she lets go her attention is already elsewhere. “Lilli!Aster! Sorrel! Come say thank you, where are your manners?”

 

The two boys peer around the edge of a crate, where they had taken shelter. Lilli marches right up to Oscar though, tiny plaits swinging behind her, and tells him, matter-of-fact, “The boys always talk big but when real Grimm show up, Sorrel screams the loudest. Thank you, Mr. Huntsman,” she adds.

 

“Thank you, Lilli,” Oscar says gravely. “You were very brave and did very well to defend Sorrel and… and…?”

 

Lilli puffs up in pride, and points at the boys. “Aster is the one with brown hair, and Sorrel has red hair.” Aster has just coaxed Sorrel out of hiding, leading him towards their small group. “We were just playing by the creek when _boom_ , a huge Beowulf appeared, and so we came running back to the road like Mama always tells us too, but then _ten Ursas_ —”

 

“There weren’t ten Ursas,” Aster objects, and then the kids are off, shouting over each other in their retelling of the battle that just happened.

 

Samara meets Oscar’s eyes over their heads, and slowly, pointedly rolls them. Oscar bursts out laughing, loud, chest-shaking guffaws that he can’t remember the last time he laughed so hard.

 

—

 

In Vyndu Village, he learns that Grimm activity has been steadily increasing since the Fall of Vale, but the Mistralian Huntsmen and Huntresses all seem to have vanished — villagers have had to take up weapons themselves to defend their homes. And so, Samara explains, they formed the teams Oscar saw take on the Beowolves.

 

Oscar thinks about a day back in the Mistral house, one filled with raucous laughter and lifted voices, of Qrow’s low murmur — “All of them, Oz, all of them” — and Oscar wonders how many towns have been suffering from the silent assassinations of Mistral’s Huntsmen and Huntresses.

 

“But you were a big help this time — I’m not sure what we would have done about that Ursa if you hadn’t been here,” Samara says, shaking her head as she rummages through her dirty green apron pockets. “There hasn’t been a Huntsman through here in ages so our coffers definitely have enough lien for the Huntsman fee — ah, where’s it gone — ”

 

“Oh, no, I couldn’t take— ” He’s cut off by a frosty look from Samara, who then lets out an “aha!” when she locates her scroll.

 

“Don’t be silly,” she says, gesturing impatiently for his. “How else are you planning to keep yourself fed?”

 

Oscar… admits he hasn’t thought that far yet. “But I’m not a real Huntsman,” he protests, even as he meekly hands it over. He knows that look. He’s seen it on his aunt’s face many a time, and one did not cross Auntie Em.

 

“Well, you’re doing more of a job than I’ve seen one do in the past year,” Samara says, tongue between her teeth as she taps at the glass. “How do these — oh, there we go.” She hands his scroll back to him, the cheery words “WIRE TRANSFER COMPLETE” flashing on his screen.

 

Oscar boggles at the number on his scroll, then tries to hand it back to her. “Samara, this is too — “

 

“Finish that sentence, young man, and I’ll make you take Lilli as an apprentice and you’ll never hear the end of anything from her,” Samara says, forestalling him with a single raised finger. “That’s the price of a regular Huntsman commission, and you shan’t be getting any less from Vyndu Village. We don’t have an inn but all our doors are open to you, it’s the least we can do.”

 

“But I’m not a Huntsman,” Oscar says one last time, despairingly.

 

“Then what are you?” Oscar glances down to see Sorrel, clutching the baggy knees of his pants in his small hands. The redheaded boy has pale green eyes, which gaze solemnly up at Oscar.

 

“I’m—“ Oscar’s voice catches in his throat. “I’m just a farmhand. I don’t— ”

 

Samara scoffs. “If all farmhands were like you, we wouldn’t even need Huntsmen and Huntresses. Well, maybe for the really big Nevermores.” She lays a heavy hand on his shoulder and gives it a pat. “You’re doing good work, Oscar. I don’t suppose I could convince you to stay, but that would be selfish of us. If there’s anything a humble village blacksmith can do for you — ” Samara spreads her arms with a wry smile, gesturing at the humble sprawl of Vyndu Village behind her. “— don’t hesitate to let me know.”

 

—

 

And so, by complete accident and sheer luck, by coincidence and Oscar’s good fortune, he stumbles across a purpose. He travels deeper into the Mistral wilderness, following unpaved roads from village to village, homestead to homestead, helping them with Grimm and the occasional fencepost that needs mending. In Inori, Oscar helps deal with a pack of Boarbatusk; in Gatanku, a nest of King Taijitus. There are more Ursas in Olun; a pair of mid-sized Nevermores in Bilu. A Geist terrorizing Sabiyani gives Oscar some trouble, but he doggedly drives it to a barren cliffside, where it runs out of new materials for limbs and eventually discards its pebbly body, diving over the edge in a ghostly whoosh. Oscar stands on the rocks, gazing down at the Grimm’s retreating form, and not for the first time, rues the lack of ranged ability in Ozpin’s cane.

 

He doesn’t walk out of the battles without bruises or scrapes, though — one of the Boarbatusks slams into his ribs hard enough that it becomes difficult to breathe for the next few days, and Oscar wonders if he may have cracked a rib or two. He simply wraps his ribs with a spare roll of bandages, however, and waves goodbye to the townspeople with a smile that’s only half-forced before setting off down the road again.

 

His ribs are only a minor ache by the time an Ursa tries to break his left arm, and though Oscar wins that battle — with his arm intact, no less — the joints are sore for the next week, so Oscar carefully skirts a herd of Goliaths that seem to be migrating northward. Goliaths, he remembers, tend to be rather passive, and there was no sense in picking a fight he couldn’t win.

 

There’s only a twinge left in his elbow when he runs into the Geist, and he wrenches an ankle clambering over a rockfall, chasing it to the cliff; after it vanishes into the shadows, hundreds of feet down, Oscar sits heavily down on a large boulder and gently eases his foot out of his boots, hissing. He pulls out his spare roll of bandages and binds the ankle firmly — it’s already starting to swell, he’ll have to ask the folks in Sabiyani if they have any ice — before taking a moment to gaze out at the tops of the gently swaying trees below.

 

“I bet a real Huntsman wouldn’t have to deal with all this,” Oscar says to the air.

 

No response comes, so he heaves one last sigh before beginning the long limp back to town.

 

Oscar works his way south, towards Kochinashi, then takes a few days of rest in the city, wandering its winding, cobblestone roads and discovering, delighted, that he’s amassed quite the small fortune in Huntsman commissions, which, apparently, pay by the Grimm. He buys more needle and thread, restocks his dwindling provisions, picks up two new rolls of bandages. He luxuriates in the softness of a real mattress at night, but in a few days he gets restless again, and visits the bounty mission board in the town center to decide where to go next. Umitomi, just northeast of Kochinashi, had requested aid just a few days ago for “sphinx trouble.” The corner of Oscar’s mouth quirks; he’s dealt with those before, and on a moving train, so this can’t be too hard.

 

Before he leaves, he stops by a clothier’s at the edge of town and pores through the racks, hyperaware of his threadbare pants and dirty shirt, the sleeves frayed at the folds where he constantly has them rolled up. He spends so long agonizing over the choices that the clothier takes pity on him and comes over.

 

“Huntsman?” the clothier asks, and Oscar gives back the half-nod-half-shrug of equivocation he’s come to perfect over the past few weeks, only to be taken by surprise as the clothier’s pale purple eyes light up with excitement as the man takes Oscar by the elbow and launches into a verbal barrage about “style” and “branding.” Oscar can only nod and pretend to keep up with the man.

 

An hour later, he emerges, only slightly dazed, a new collared green shirt over a black underlayer (“it may be turning spring out there but you’ll still need to stay warm at nights!”), sturdy work pants that don’t actually need suspenders to stay up (“this material will hold up through all sorts of Grimm shenaniganery, if you know what I mean”), and three pairs of thick wool socks. Oscar had firmly refused the offer of new gloves or new boots. Nor had the clothier, thankfully, asked about the firmly-wrapped bandages at the base of his neck, though the man did give him an unreadable smile before adding an orange tube scarf to Oscar’s pile of clothes. When Oscar protested, the clothier shook his head, just saying, “Consider it thanks, for all you do for the citizens of Kochinashi,” and Oscar can’t find it in him to say no.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oscar's outfit upgrade inspired by lieu-rey's artwork on tumblr (prior to the canon costume upgrade), which I am terrible and did not ask for permission before writing into this. plz forgive


	2. INTERLUDE

Ruby was standing at the foot of the stairs, replaying her conversations with Oscar over and over again, looking for clues to where the farmhand might have gone, when Blake tapped her shoulder. “C’mon. We’re all meeting in the living room.”

Ruby nodded, and followed her teammate to the couches. Yang slouched against the back cushions, left arm crossed over robotic one; Weiss had her feet tucked up next to her. Ren and Nora sat closer than over, and Jaune kept pacing behind their loveseat.

“No luck?” Ruby asked, knowing the answer already.

“No,” Ren confirmed.

“Well, all his things are gone from the room upstairs,” Blake said, settling down beside Yang. “For better or worse, it looks like he left on purpose.”

“It’s all my fault,” Jaune said, grinding to a stop behind the loveseat. “I overreacted. I was way out of line, and—” 

“Stop.” Ruby was tired, so tired of making sure all her teammates were okay, because they weren’t, and sometimes she thought she was the only who could see it, all the microexpressions on Yang’s face when her older sister thought no one was looking, and the things Jaune would say about himself, about not mattering, but she was Ruby Rose and she took care of her team, whether RWBY or RNJR, so she interrupted Jaune mid-guilt trip. “It’s all of our faults. We’ve been hard on Oscar ever since we found out about Ozpin, it wasn’t just you, Jaune.” Uncle Qrow’s absence gapes at her — another person she has to find, and take care of, and make sure he’s okay.

Ruby was so, so tired.

“Maybe he got scared, and ran away,” Yang said, chin tucked sullenly into her collar.

Ruby glanced at her sister, sharp. “You don’t really believe that, Yang.”

Yang held her look for a few seconds, then looked away. “No. I don’t.”

“Well, how are we supposed to find him?” Nora asked. “Just because he left on purpose doesn’t mean that he doesn’t need our help! What if he’s in trouble somewhere, or got kidnapped, or—”

Ren caught one of Nora’s wildly gesticulating hands and guided it down to rest gently on her knee; Nora didn’t even seem to notice, and something in Ruby’s heart ached with a happy-sad-happy feeling for the two of them. “We’ll just have to keep looking,” Ren said, his voice calm and soothing.

“Well, what if he’s left the city?” Weiss spoke up, voice apologetic. “He could be anywhere, and it doesn’t seem like he wants to be found.”

“Wasn’t he a farmhand in Mistral?” Blake asked. “He could be going home. We could send a letter to his family and ask them to tell us if they see him.”

“Oh, that’s a good idea,” Jaune said, lighting up. “Er, does anyone know his aunt’s name?”

They all fell silent, thinking. Ruby went over her conversations again — Oscar had mentioned his aunt on occasion, Jaune was right. Surely she had a name — 

But Ruby came up with nothing, and if the expressions on her teammates’ faces were anything to go by, then neither had they.

“Wow. We… haven’t exactly been the greatest people to Oscar, have we.” Jaune closed his eyes tightly, the way Ruby knew meant that he was trying to control himself, trying not to show too much emotion in front of his team. She wanted to go over to him, to grasp his shoulder, but Oscar’s departure had revealed something brittle in her, too, and she didn’t think she could do that right now.

“No, we haven’t,” Ruby said finally. All gazes returned to her, expectant, and Ruby took their expectations and layered them on her shoulders, the weight a familiar burden by now. “But we can only assume that Oscar left on purpose, for a good reason, even if we don’t know what that reason is. Even if that reason might be us.” She took a deep breath, and if the exhale held memories of green eyes that edged towards amber gold, a shy voice, an awkward laugh — well. That was hers to know. “We still need to figure out how to get the Relic to Atlas. The longer we stay here, the more likely Salem will find us. Oscar’s gotten much stronger over the past few months. He can take care of himself.” Ruby hated that she wanted to add ‘probably’ to the end of that sentence.

She knew what the rest of RNJR was thinking — of a scorpion Faunus who had bested all three of them, easily, who had nearly killed Uncle Qrow, and who had proudly, laughingly said that he served only ‘the Queen.’ A queen, who likely had others at her command, equally brutal, equally deadly.

Salem would not hesitate to send someone like Tyrian after Oscar, and Oscar wouldn’t stand a chance.

“And I know we don’t really trust him right now, but Oscar does have Ozpin in his head.” Ren spoke up again. “While we were fighting Hazel, Ozpin was looking out for Oscar. And whatever Ozpin’s… motivations are, he must still care for Oscar, even if it’s only in his self-interest.”

Another silence settled over the living room as they all digested this information. Yang came out of it first. “All right then. What’s the plan, Ruby?”

Ruby breathed deep, let the air fill her lungs, fill shoulders under her cloak, under the mantle of leadership. “Jaune, can we leave Saffron a note for Oscar, just in case he comes back?” Jaune nods. “Great. We’ll do that, just in case Oscar changes his mind and comes back after we’ve gone. In the meantime—” She narrows her eyes. “This Relic isn’t going to get to Atlas own its own.

“We have a plane to steal.”


	3. ozpin returns

Autumn is in full-swing in Mistral, leaves bursting in fireworks of color, when Ozpin returns. Oscar has become so accustomed to his passenger’s absence that when the presence at the back of his mind slowly stretches and unfolds itself again, Oscar is on his feet in seconds, cane out and ready for combat before he realizes that the sensation wasn’t the tingling of reflexes of an Ursa creeping up behind him, but Ozpin.

 

Oscar slowly settles back down, resting the cane across his knees. “Ozpin…?” he says, carefully.

 

 _…yes. Hello, Oscar._ There is a pause; Oscar imagines Ozpin drinking in the forest around them. _Where… are we? What happened?_

 

“You can still read my thoughts, right?”

 

 _Yes_.

 

“Would you like me to tell you or show you?”

 

Ozpin considers this for a moment. _Tell me_ , he says at last.

 

And Oscar does, keeping his voice careful and even, trying to keep all the memories from bubbling up and overwhelming Ozpin in full technicolor. Oscar tells him about leaving Argus, wandering through Mistral, the various kinds of Grimm he’s hunted. He tells Ozpin about Vyndu Village, Gatanku, Olun; about Inori, Kochinashi, Bilu, Sabiyani, Umitomi, all the towns thereafter. He talks about the thankful faces of the villagers, glosses over the bumps and bruises of the earlier days.

 

Ozpin, for his part, listens carefully and respectfully, and Oscar imagines Ozpin picking up the corners of the memories Oscar can’t quite tamp down and examining them gently before putting them down and moving on to Oscar’s next story. When Oscar finishes, they fall into silence, Oscar waiting, surprised at his own anxiety for Ozpin’s response.

 

 _You’ve done well, Oscar_ , Ozpin says finally, and Oscar is so relieved he sags against the tree they’ve been resting against. He’d expected Ozpin to ask him why he’d left the others, or at least firmly express his disappointment in Oscar for running away from the fight — the distance of months now means that Oscar can call it what it was — but Ozpin’s unexpected kindness strikes him where he has no armor.

 

Oscar feels rather than hears Ozpin’s quiet chuckle of amusement. Ozpin, who can still read all his thoughts. _Oh, Oscar. Did you really think so meanly of me?_

 

“Yes. No. I don’t know.” Oscar drums his fingers against their cane. “ _I’ve_ thought that meanly of me, so I guess, I didn’t want to be surprised if you did, too.”

 

 _Oscar. You could never disappoint me_.

 

Oscar can _hear_ the warm smile in Ozpin’s voice, and closes his eyes, overwhelmed. “Really?” he asks with the hint of a smirk. “Not even if I’d refused to leave my aunt’s farm?”

 

 _Not even then. No one is required to go out there and risk their lives to save others. But you chose to put others before yourself — you are still choosing to put others before yourself. And that, in and of itself, is admirable_.

 

“What about you?” Oscar says quickly.

 

_I’m sorry?_

 

“What about you, then? Are you disappointed in yourself?”

 

Ozpin does not speak for so long that Oscar worries if he’s overstepped and pushed him too far, the first time Ozpin’s come back since snow and scathing shouts. _I’ve made more mistakes than any man, woman, or child in Remnant —_

 

“But you’ve also lived more lives than any man, woman, or child in Remnant,” Oscar says. “By definition.”

 

 _Well, yes. That is how reincarnation works_.

 

“So of course you’ve made more mistakes. You’ve had more time to, so much more. No one could even _compete_. Even if a regular person made a mistake every minute of their life, they still couldn’t keep up with you. _But you still get back up._ You get back up and fight, every life, every time.”

 

_…well. Not every life._

 

And the mind-reading went both ways, sometimes, and Oscar could glimpse the edges of memories softened by drink, sharpened by bitterness, lives he’d glimpsed briefly from the outside through Jinn’s visions.

 

Oscar firmly quashed those memories, tucking them away, out of sight, out of reach, out of thought. “That’s enough of that. So you took a couple of lives off. So you’re not a machine. That doesn’t make what you’ve done — that doesn’t make what you _do_ — any less meaningful.”

 

There is another long silence, one that Oscar is comfortable with, watching golden-amber leaves drift down from the sky, borne on a light autumn wind. He gives Ozpin time and focuses instead on the steady in-out of their breaths, the light puffs of mist in the cooling sky.

 

He’s had a lot of time to think about what to say to Ozpin, after all; there had been versions of this conversation in his head, previously, that featured more shouting, more anger, more crying. There were conversations in their future, Oscar had no doubt, that would have raised voices, would be fueled by rage and anger and despair. But not now. Not yet.

 

At last, the presence in the back of Oscar’s mind shifts. _Thank you, Oscar,_ Ozpin’s voice says, finally. _I have a lot to think about_.

 

And Ozpin dissolves back down and away — not curled up in a tight, unresponsive ball like he had been for the past year, shutting out everything and everyone — but somehow open, relaxed, as if he was falling asleep.

 

 _Of course_ , comes the faint, amused thought. _Staying completely closed off from the world takes a great deal of energy, after all…_

 

And Oscar smiles, leans back, and looks at the clouds scudding across the sky. The moment feels soft, sweet, sad, and triumphant all at once, and he lies there on a nameless patch of forest floor deep in the heart of Mistral. For the first time in a long time, Oscar realizes, he feels hopeful.


	4. epilogue

When the day of judgment comes, Oscar is leading a patrol up the side of Mirestel Volcano, where they’d heard about some abominable, slithering volcano Grimm from the townspeople below. Safire and Morado are out of sight, climbing the mountain from the southeast; Oscar can hear Cobalt following along behind him, an occasional muttered curse when she trips on a tree root.

 

It has been two years since Oscar walked out of a lighted room in Argus, and he’s still not sure how he ended up with a _following_.

 

It began with Cobalt, and a giant Nevermore, and after the ashes had settled the girl had fixed him with those sharp, crystal-blue eyes and told him that she wouldn’t take no for an answer; then there was Morado, who they helped pull from a fire in Kaleen, and then Zise in Tudi, and Safire, from the first time they tangled with bandits, and many, many others. Young men and woman who couldn’t afford to go to a Huntsman Academy because they lived too far away, or because their parents needed them on the farm; farmhands and hunters (no capital) and lumberjacks and woodspeople who all were captivated at the sky at some point, who all nursed a secret dream to be something _more_ , and, well, how could Oscar turn them away?

 

When he appealed, silently, to Ozpin for help, Oscar got the sense that the other man was shaking his head in quiet amusement. But then Ozpin spoke up — _I believe I was the headmaster of Beacon Academy, after all —_ and some days Oscar still needs to sit down a little faster than usual because it’s hit him again, he never in his wildest dreams expected to be running an impromptu _school_ in the backwoods of Mistral.

 

It began with a few days, which stretched out to a few weeks, and then before Oscar or Ozpin had noticed, another year and a half had gone by, and now, it was the day of judgment, and they _aren’t even remotely prepared_.

 

A quake throws them all to the ground — a double thump, like a heartbeat, shakes the mountainside — and a brilliant white burst of light blinds them. Cobalt yells, startled, and the cane is in Oscar’s hands, heavy, reassuring.

 

When they can all see again, blinking eyes against a blue sky that seems bluer than it was before, they look around in amazement; every single plant is blooming, even the tendrils of moss clinging to the thick, ash-hardened evergreen trunks. Ozpin gets it a breath before Oscar does, both of them speaking at once:

 

“ _The Gods have returned_.”

 

“I’m sorry, _what_?” Cobalt says crossly, picking herself off the ground. She brushes loose petals from the graceful bell-curve her left sleeve. “What gods?”

 

“So it seems the humans have forgotten us,” a towering, antlered being of light says where there wasn’t a towering, antlered being of light before, and Cobalt’s mouth gapes wide open.

 

“Those gods,” Oscar says unnecessarily, jerking a thumb in the direction of the god of light. In the back of his head, Ozpin is practically vibrating with excitement.

 

They turn to face the god.

 

“The relics have been united, and humanity has been judged,” the god of light says. “My brother and I have gazed over Remnant, and deemed that, though mankind is imperfect, you are struggling to overcome your imperfections, and that, at the very least, should be rewarded.” The divine being flicks a finger in Oscar’s direction. “You have succeeded, Ozma, though I am surprised that you were not among the group to bring the relics together.”

 

“I was, but I left,” Oscar says to the god of light. “I didn’t understand it at the time, but I came to realize that I had more important things to do.” Things like restoring peace to the Mistral out-settlements, negotiating treaties with the bandits, accidentally starting a grassroots movement, and taking on more apprentices that he knew what to do with. He was barely sixteen, even if he had a millennias-old passenger along for the ride.

 

Behind him, Cobalt seems to have picked her jaw off the ground. Knowing her, she must be glaring daggers at the god of light right now, divine being or not.

 

“You have succeeded, and thanks to the efforts of Ruby Rose, your love has been restored to her untainted form,” the god of light says. “The Grimm has been purged from Salem, and she is once again the woman you love. If you would like, I can give you a mortal form — your original one, even — as a reward, and the two of you can live out the rest of your lives in peace, as you had always dreamed you would. This, I would grant you. If you wish.”

 

And for a moment, Oscar and Ozpin are both seized by a terrible, dual yearning. Oscar, for the possibility that he can be his own man, not just now, but forever, into adulthood and old age, never becoming Ozpin; and Ozpin, for the best days he ever knew, those early days when love was his and all was simple and he had a body of his own, one he didn’t have to feel guilty about inhabiting and moving, one he woke up in the mornings and went to sleep at night, at his lover’s side. They’d stopped trying to keep secrets from each other months ago — what was the point, after all? — and so for that moment, the force of the doubled yearning was so great, Oscar can only choke out a strangled sound and fall to his knees at the god’s feet.

 

“Oscar!” Cobalt says, starting towards them. Brave, foolish Cobalt. Oscar holds a hand up, forestalling her.

 

“No,” they say, looking up at the god.

 

“No?” The god of light looks stunned — at least, as stunned as a faceless statue of a Faunus can look. “You do not wish to regain your original body, to live out a human lifespan with the love of your life?”

 

_No,_ Ozpin says, and Oscar relays the message for him. “No, that time is over. Salem may be the woman I loved, but I am not the same man. And after everything that happened—” they shake their head. “I couldn’t go back. I _can’t_ go back.”

 

“And so you wish to remain in this form, dying and reincarnating forever?”

 

“ _No_!” They take a deep breath, calming themselves, before saying again, more collected, “no.” _I want… “_ I want to rest,” Oscar says for Ozpin, then stops, shocked, because with the word _rest_ he sees what Ozpin means — a beyond, a void of nothingness, a gentle oblivion. _Ozpin, no_ , he pleads silently, with all the grief of a young man who has yet to lose many people in his life.

 

_Let me rest, Oscar_ , Ozpin says gently. _I’ve lived for so long. It’s what I want._

 

From the way the god of light is looking at them right now, Oscar knows that it can hear them, so he closes his eyes for one last moment with Ozpin. _Will it ever stop hurting?_ Oscar asks.

 

_The pain of losing someone? Never_ , Ozpin replies. _But it does get a little better over time._

 

Oscar nods once, short, curt, and opens his eyes, willing away the tears. “Let him go,” he says to the god of light. “He deserves it.”

 

The god just looks at them for a moment before sighing. “Humans,” the god says. “Just when I think I start to understand you.” It makes a beckoning motion with a hand, and Oscar pitches forward, compelled, pulled along by his Aura, his _very soul_ —

 

— and wakes up, legs tangled in wildflowers, Cobalt shaking his shoulders anxiously. “Wake up, wake up, Oscar!”

 

“I’m up, I’m — Cobalt, what happened?” Oscar maneuvers himself into a sitting position and winces; he feels like he’s been trampled by a herd of Boarbatusks, or chewed on by an Ursa.

 

“The god dude did this thing where it looked like it was pulling your _soul_ out of your _body_ , but like, your soul was this orange and green light and he only took the green part and let it go, and the green part drifted into the sky but the orange part went back into your face and — ”

 

“Okay, Cobalt, I get the idea, you can stop now.” _Ozpin?_ Oscar tries mentally, but his passenger is gone, the space in the back of Oscar’s mind so long occupied by a sarcastic yet soothing voice just…

 

empty.

 

A wave of emotion crashes into him, and he bows his head because there is nothing else he can do.

 

“Oh no, Oscar, what’s wrong? Are you okay? Is it happening again — oh. You’re crying.”

 

“No, they’re good tears, Cobalt. Happy tears.”

 

She frowns at him. “Are you sure?”

 

“Well, there are sad tears as well,” Oscar admits. “But overall good?”

 

Cobalt scowls intensely, as if thinking hard, then nods sharply to herself. Before Oscar can react, she leans forward and gives him a brusque hug before settling back on her heels. “There. Now they should be only happy tears,” she says, matter-of-fact.

 

Oscar laughs — pure, loud, light — and feels free, freer than he has since that warm summer dawn he woke up with a heavy weight on the back of his mind. He tilts his face up, feels the sun beating down on his skin, warmer and kinder than before. “Thank you, Cobalt,” he says, climbing to his feet, a little unsteady. “Thank you for that.”

 

She eyes him suspiciously. “What are you doing now?”

 

He quirks an eyebrow at her. “What do you think? The Grimm up in that volcano isn’t going to go on holiday just because the gods are back. We’ve got work to do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Never thought I would write fic for this fandom, but then episode 9 of volume 6 proved me wrong. I sat down and basically wrote this in one go yesterday. Two separate times I thought to myself, “that’s enough, I’ll go to sleep and keep writing tomorrow.” TWO SEPARATE TIMES. 
> 
> I love and adore RWBY as a show, but the nature of its form makes it very difficult for every character to get the development they deserve. I’m just particularly partial to a certain heterochromatic farm boi.
> 
> There was an incredible amount of thought put into scenes that didn't make it into this version, including but not limited to: Oscar meeting Raven, Cobalt being Vernal's sister, all sorts of shenaniganery with Salem sending someone to hunt down Oscar, and the slow development of the Ozcar dynamic that I had all sorts of worldbuilding about (but was mostly cribbed from Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee. I have a thing for functionally-immortal genius tacticians/heroes getting stapled to an unsuspecting Young Person who, nevertheless, rises to the challenge).
> 
> Title taken from Caitlyn Siehl’s “Riddles,” which I adore and is 12/10 worth a Google


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